The best community platforms (late 2026)

After testing over 30 apps, the best online community platforms are Circle, Mighty Networks, Heartbeat, Skool, Bettermode, Kajabi Communities, Swarm and GroupApp.

In this guide, I’ll show you how the 8 platforms compare on:

• Engagement tools: Direct messaging, group chats, interactive event hosting, and member-led discussion forums.
• Monetization features: Built-in tools for recurring subscriptions, paid memberships, digital products, and one-off gates.
• Courses and online learning: native capabilities for hosting lessons, cohorts, and video content.
• Custom branding: White-label capabilities, custom domain setups, and personalized visual themes.
• Member management: Permissions, custom member profiles, and tools to combat spam or manage large-scale moderation.
• Data analytics: Dashboards tracking active members, churn rates, popular content, and community growth.
• Integration ecosystem: Seamless connections to other business tools that community builders already use, such as email marketing services, CRM platforms, payment processors like Stripe, and more.
• Mobile accessibility: Dedicated iOS and Android apps, push notifications, and responsive mobile-web design.
• Pricing value: The balance between flat monthly fees, member caps, and transaction fees across tiers.

Let’s dive in.

The best community platforms at a glance

What makes the best online community software?

Any tool that: 

• supports threaded discussions and chats,
• let’s you gate content,
• allows you to host live events.

Qualifies as an online community software.

But not all platforms made it to this list.

Here’s what I considered:

• Value for money: I considered what each subscription actually includes, whether essential capabilities are restricted to expensive plans, and how much additional spending is required for integrations, automation, branded apps, or other functionality. I also looked at hidden costs, transaction fees, member limits, and the price of upgrading.
• Ease of setup and day-to-day management: I considered how quickly someone can get a community up and running. I also checked how effective you can automate routine tasks such as; welcoming new members, assigning them to groups, managing content access based on subscription status, and sending event reminders.
• Organization and access control: I considered how well each platform organizes discussions, resources, courses, events, and member groups, as well as the flexibility to create dedicated spaces for different interests, audiences, or membership tiers. I also looked at how granular the permission settings are, whether access can be assigned based on membership status or purchases, and whether permissions update automatically when someone joins, upgrades, or cancels. The goal is to find platforms that can accommodate different community structures without becoming cluttered, confusing, or difficult to manage.
• Membership management and administration: I assessed how each platform handles onboarding, registrations, subscriptions, renewals, cancellations, upgrades, payments, and member profiles. I also looked at membership tiers, activity tracking, and targeted communication.
• Member engagement and interaction: A thriving community needs an environment that encourages people to participate, contribute, connect with one another, and develop a sense of belonging. I evaluated the tools each platform provides to facilitate interaction, including discussions, direct messaging, polls, member directories, challenges, gamification, recognition, and community-wide activities. 
• Events and live experiences: Live interactions give community members opportunities to connect in real time, learn from experts, exchange ideas, and build stronger relationships. I considered how well each platform supports different types of online experiences, from webinars, workshops, and group coaching sessions to virtual meetups, Q&As, and recurring community gatherings.I also assessed native event management features such as scheduling, registration, reminders, attendee management, live streaming, and session recordings. Other important considerations included audience capacity, streaming limits, and whether members can easily discover and join upcoming events. 
• Branding, customization, and ownership: A community should feel like an extension of your brand. I looked at how much control each platform gives you over visual identity, domains, layouts, navigation, and the overall member experience. This includes white-label options, branded mobile apps, and cross-device consistency. I also considered ownership of member data and content, communication channels, and the ability to export or migrate community assets.
• Business growth and marketing tools: I evaluated features that can help you attract members, convert prospects, increase member lifetime value, and generate revenue. These include landing pages, lead capture, email marketing, sales funnels, promotional campaigns, affiliate programs, upselling, analytics, and integrations with other business tools. I also considered how easily owners can launch new offerings and identify growth opportunities.
• Room to scale and long-term flexibility. I evaluated how well each platform handles growing membership numbers, increased activity, expanding content libraries, additional community spaces, and more sophisticated membership offerings. I also looked at restrictions such as member caps, storage limits, usage allowances, and feature availability across subscription tiers. Equally important is whether the platform can support new business models, multiple communities, and more advanced workflows as operational needs change.
• Third-party integrations and ecosystem compatibility: I checked the range of available integrations that the platform offers. I checked for native integrations, Zapier supported and API access for custom development.

My detailed review of the best online community platforms

Now, some of the above requirements look like the bare minimum that every online community building platform should offer.

But as I started exploring the available options, I quickly realized that finding the software that ticks most of these boxes isn’t as straightforward as you’d think.

After narrowing down the options, I was left with eight online community platforms worth considering.

In this section, I’ll go into details and show you how each platform fairs: the strengths, limitations, and value for money based on my research and hands-on testing.

1. Circle

The most well-rounded community platform that offers great value for money

Circle topped my list as the best overall online community platform. It’s versatile, feature-rich and offers great value on every plan, which makes it a good fit for communities of any size.

Many community platforms lure you in with a cheap entry plan. But as your community grows, you hit some hard resource limits, forcing you to upgrade to a more expensive plan.

For example, Heartbeat starts at $49/month but limits you to 350 members, and charges a 5% transaction fee on sales, on top of Stripe’s processing fees.

Skool’s $9/month plan looks even more attractive at first glance but it also charges you a 10% transaction fee and has some ridiculous limits like inability to change your group URL.

Okay, Circle isn’t the cheapest platform you’ll find, ain’t gonna lie.

But in my experience, it’s the only online community software that gives you more room to grow without immediately running into resource limits. Its plans cover the essentials from the start, while higher tiers introduce more sophisticated tools as your community membership business needs change.

Start with community management. Circle lets you organize your Circle community into private Spaces for discussions, courses, events and exclusive content.

You can assign permissions to individual Spaces, controlling exactly what members can access.

But Circle goes further with Access Groups allowing you to bundle several Spaces together and give members access to all of them at once.

Connect different Access Groups to specific paywall offers, and you can create membership tiers that automatically unlock the right content and community areas for each member.

You also get useful member management tools including:

• Tags: Label members based on their interests, roles, purchase history, or other characteristics to make them easier to organize.
• Segments: Create dynamic member groups based on tags, profile fields, Space access, subscription status, and engagement activity, making it easier to target specific audiences with relevant content and campaigns.
• Bulk imports and exports: Add or remove large numbers of members at once, making it easier to migrate communities or manage your member database.
• Discussion moderation: Use moderation tools, including keyword filters, to flag or filter unwanted content and keep conversations appropriate.
• Activity reporting: Track member activity and engagement to understand how people interact with your community and identify members who need re-engagement.

Now: a community is only valuable when people have a reason to participate. Which is why Circle has some fantastic community engagement tools such as:

• Discussion boards: Members can publish posts, comment, react, and participate in conversations.
• Direct messaging: They can connect through private messages and group chats.
• Member directory: Members can discover others in the community and build relationships.
• Gamification: Leaderboards and badge awarding system encouraging participation.
• Live experiences: Native livestreams and live rooms letting you host group calls, workshops, and virtual events bringing members together.
• Notifications: In-app alerts and weekly email digests helping bring inactive members back into the conversation.

Circle has also evolved beyond community building into more of an all-in-one membership business platform.

Instead of using separate tools for your marketing needs, you can handle much of that directly inside Circle.

You can build your community website, landing pages, and sales pages allowing you to present your offers, attract potential members, and convert visitors into paying customers.

You also get native email marketing tools allowing you to create end-to-end email workflows for common campaigns like re-engaging inactive members, welcoming new members, nurturing sequences, etc.

Unfortunately, email marketing isn’t fully included in your paid plans. You can have up to 100 contacts for free, but larger lists require the Email Hub add-on, starting at $19/month for up to 1,000 contacts.

To monetize your community, Circle has Paywalls. You can charge for access to the entire community or individual Spaces, sell recurring subscriptions or one-time purchases, and offer installment plans, free trials, and coupons. You can also add post-checkout upsells to increase the order value of your offers, thereby increasing sales.

As your community and business grow, managing members, onboarding customers, and handling daily operations can become increasingly demanding.

Circle’s high-end plans give you access to more advanced tools to automate operations, customize your community, and deliver a more branded member experience, including:

• Advanced workflows: Build intricate automations to streamline onboarding, member management, and routine tasks.
• Custom profile fields: Collect additional information to better understand and organize your members.
• Admin API, Headless Member API, and webhooks: Automate member management and administrative tasks, embed Circle’s community features into your own websites and apps, and sync member data and community events with external tools in real time.
• Community white-labelling: Remove Circle branding for a more professional, fully branded community.
• Custom mobile app builder: Create your own branded iOS and Android community apps.
• Branded push notifications: Send mobile notifications under your own brand.
• Native in-app payments: Allow members to make purchases directly inside your branded mobile app.
• AI agents, workflows, and filters: Use AI-powered agents to answer member questions and provide support, automate tasks with AI workflows, and apply AI moderation filters to identify and manage inappropriate discussions.
• Ad performance tracking SDK: Integrate advertising attribution tools to track campaign performance.

Circle pricing review

Let’s be honest: Circle isn’t the most affordable community platform, especially if you’re just starting out. Its paid plans start at $129/month, which is a significant investment if you’re still validating your membership idea.

Here’s how Circle’s plans compare:

• Professional: $129/month ($89/month billed annually): up to 3 admins, 10 moderators, and 20 Spaces.
• Business: $219/month ($199/month billed annually): up to 5 admins, 15 moderators, and 30 Spaces.
• Scale: $499/month ($419/month billed annually): up to 10 admins, 100 moderators, and 100 Spaces.
• Circle Plus: Custom pricing: unlimited admins, moderators, and Spaces.

On top of your monthly subscription, Circle also charges transaction fees on sales made through the platform. These range from 2% to 0.5%, depending on your plan.

Which are charged on top of Stripe’s payment processing fees (typically 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction).

Circle pros and cons

Explore Circle.so free for 14 days.

Also read:

• Circle.so review
• Circle vs. Mighty Networks
• Circle vs. Skool
• Detailed Circle.so community platform tutorial

2. Mighty Networks

Best for building high-engagement, multi-level online communities.

Mighty Networks has been in the community building space for nearly a decade now. So it’s safe to think that they understand what tools you need to build an engaging community better than newer competitors. 

And honestly, they do.

Compared to other platforms I’ve used, including Circle and Bettermode, Mighty has superior engagement tools. You can build interactive experiences to engage members through social mechanics that feel native.

For example you can use:

• Icebreaker questions to secure participation the moment a new member joins.
• People Magic to highlight commonalities between members like shared professional transitions or geographic proximity which lets them connect instantly without digging through a static directory.
• Streaks and challenges to gamify participation and maintain momentum throughout the member journey.

Within your discussion boards, you can engage members with threaded posts, multi-media content, and polls. 

But unlike other community platforms like Circle and Skool, where polls are plain and easy to ignore:

In Mighty Networks, polls are more visually appealing. 

You also get more poll formats like hot-or-cold voting, open-ended questions, and percentage sliders which makes participation and data collection more interactive. 

Speaking of events, Mighty Networks supports native livestreaming and event management. You can host one-off workshops or recurring masterminds with built-in RSVP tracking and automated reminders. 

However, it’s important to note that they limit the livestreaming hours per month and the number of participants you can have per live session. For example, its entry-level plan restricts you to 100 viewers per session and 20 total hours per month. 

But if you prefer using an external video conferencing tool instead, Mighty Networks has a direct integration to Zoom which ensures your Zoom Meetings or Webinars sync directly with your events calendar, keeping all attendance data in one place.

When it comes to learning, Mighty Networks support both self-paced and cohort-based courses.

For self-paced programs, you can natively host your materials, drip-feed modules, add downloadable files and assess your students with quizzes. 

However Mighty’s course builder doesn’t support more advanced learning management tools like SCORM compliance, gradebooks, randomized question banks, survey forms and completion certificate issuing. 

In cohort-based programs, Mighty Networks lets you incorporate social elements into your courses. Essentially, it combines course delivery, discussion board, members directory and live events directly into your course space. 

Instead of going through the learning materials alone, your students can collaborate through discussions, direct messaging and live sessions. This increases completion rates because it lets you transform your course into an active community where members support each other.

Mighty Networks’ Space architecture is also one of its major strengths which makes it a stronger solution for associations and professional networks.

In other platforms, Spaces or the equivalents of them, are rigid and not customizable. For example in Circle, spaces can only support one content format at a time. That is, if it’s a course space, you can’t embed other features like discussions, events or a member directory within that same specific space.

But in Mighty Networks, a Space is a container that you can customize like a Lego set. Simply head to your space settings and enable the specific features you want. You could have a single space that contains a chat, feed, members directory and events calendar.

Given this flexibility, you can host dozens of private sub-communities for specific chapters or interest groups which helps keep your network more organized and intentional.

Mighty Networks Pricing

Mighty Networks has 4 plans: Three paid tiers and a custom enterprise plan. Paid plans limit you based on the number of hosts, moderators, and spaces you can have in your community. All plans allow for unlimited members and include mobile apps for iOS, Android devices.

• Launch: $95 per month for 3 hosts, 10 moderators, and unlimited spaces. $79 billed annually.
• Scale: $215 per month for 5 hosts, 15 moderators, and unlimited spaces. $179 billed annually.
• Growth: $425 per month for 10 hosts, 100 moderators, and unlimited spaces. $354 billed annually.
• Mighty Pro: Custom pricing for unlimited hosts, moderators, and spaces. Plan also includes your own branded mobile apps and a dedicated strategy team.

Mighty Networks Pros and Cons

Bottom line: Mighty Networks is the best platform for building custom, high-engagement social communities. It seamlessly integrates community features with online courses and memberships, allowing you to create a sustainable business while keeping members engaged. You can build branded communities that align with your theme, engage members through events, chats, posts, polls, leaderboards, and quizzes.

Try Mighty Networks free.

Also read:

• Circle vs Mighty Networks review
• Mighty Networks review

3. Heartbeat

Best value for money

Heartbeat is a strong choice if you’re building an online learning community and want to integrate course delivery directly into the platform. 

Unlike platforms like Circle, Mighty, or Skool that focus more on community-first experiences, Heartbeat has more compelling online learning features. It offers built-in tools to run both evergreen (self-paced) and cohort-based courses, with progression tracking.

You can natively host course videos or embed them from platforms like Wistia, Loom, Vimeo, or YouTube. You can attach assignments, link community discussions to specific lessons, and sync event channels with your courses which lets you cultivate a social learning experience.

Heartbeat also supports basic automation which simplifies your community management.For example, you can trigger a workflow that sends an email with a certificate download link once a student completes a course.

On the community side, Heartbeat supports threaded posts, group chat, events, and voice rooms. You can share videos, write text posts, run polls, and attach files inside posts. Members can RSVP to events, and you can charge for events or make them public. It also has voice and video rooms for up to 256 attendees with unlimited hours, and it connects to Zoom if you prefer to run sessions there.

Heartbeat now includes member badges and gamification on every plan.

Heartbeat features

• Course creation tools: with Heartbeat you can create self-paced and cohort-based course programs. You can natively host your course materials, assess your learners with assignments and track their progress. However, it lacks diverse assessment tools like exams, multiple choice quizzes, survey forms, peer review and course completion certificates. But for simple learning and coaching programs, Heartbeat thrives in that.
• Events management: the platform lets you host events inside your community with RSVP, reminders, and calendar integration. You can control who sees and joins your events by setting your events as paid and public. It also has native voice and video rooms for up to 256 attendees, and integrates with Zoom and Google Calendar.
• Automation & workflows: you can build simple automations which simplify community management.You get access to 10+ workflow templates covering various use cases like events management, members onboarding and payment processing. For example you can create a workflow that’s triggered when new members join your community and are automatically added to a specific access group.
• Built-in payment processing: with Heartbeat you can charge access to your courses, community, and events. It features payment processing tools powered by Stripe gateway. You can set up one-time, recurring and even tiered payments options for your community. You can also create coupons and upsell offers to increase conversions.
• Matchups: Heartbeat lets you automatically pair members based on shared interests or attributes which can be useful for peer learning, accountability, or mastermind matching.
• Custom domains and email white-labeling: you can brand your community with a custom domain and send emails from your own address to maintain a consistent member experience. However email whitelabelling is only available on the Grow plan and above.
• Affiliate programs: Heartbeat lets you launch a native referral system that lets members promote your community or products and earn commissions.
• Community apps: Heartbeat community apps for both mobile and desktop devices giving members flexibility to engage from any device.

Heartbeat pricing

Heartbeat is reasonably priced, especially compared to platforms like Circle and Mighty Networks. Its plans are clearly structured, outlining what you get and where limits apply. 

The Build plan costs $49/month and includes core features like courses, events, and workflows. But it limits your community to 350 members and doesn’t include advanced options like API access or email white-labeling.

The Grow plan, at $149/month, raises those limits. You get up to 5,000 members, access to the API, email white-labeling, and priority support.

For larger communities, the Scale plan costs $849 a month ($766 billed annually), removes the member cap and adds a white-label branded mobile app.

However, Heartbeat’s transactional fees are slightly higher than its counterparts like Circle and Kajabi.

• 5% on the Build plan
• 2.5% on the Grow plan
• 1.25% on the Scale plan

Heartbeat pros and cons

Explore Heartbeat Community free for 14 days

4. Skool

Best for launching a simple paid community fast.

Skool is the simplest platform on this list. It puts your community, courses and live events in one place with almost nothing to configure, which is why so many first-time community builders start here.

When I tested it, getting around Skool was a breeze compared with Circle and Mighty Networks. Community, Classroom, Calendar and Members all sit in the top bar, and the mobile app loaded fast without a single bug or glitch. The catch is the look. It still mirrors a classic forum or a Facebook Group, and that dated design can make a paid community feel less premium.

Everything lives in a single group: one feed for discussions, announcements and posts, with categories at the top to filter them. You can add images, files, polls, videos and GIFs to posts, pin announcements, and send a post to every member as an email broadcast. The trade-off is flexibility. Unlike Circle or Mighty Networks, you can’t split a community into separate spaces by topic, cohort or course.

Engagement runs on a leaderboard. Members earn points when their posts get likes and comments, and level up as they go. You can rename the levels, but you can’t change how points are scored or add badges, challenges or custom rewards, and there are direct messages but no group chats.

The Classroom is a simple drag-and-drop course builder: folders become modules and pages become lessons, and you can drip lessons out over time. It has no quizzes, exams or surveys, so it suits simple courses rather than certification programs.

Events are where Skool has improved most. Skool Call is a group video call where members join with their camera and microphone, which suits workshops, group coaching and masterminds. Skool Webinar streams to up to 10,000 people and lets you bring attendees on stage. You can record both and reshare them, and the calendar handles one-off or recurring events, limited to certain levels or courses if you like.

Moderation is hands-on. You can assign moderators, edit or pin posts and ban members, but there’s no automated spam detection or profanity filter, so keeping the quality up is on you.

Skool handles checkout itself, with cards, Google Pay and Apple Pay, 7-day free trials for your members, and an affiliate program that pays members for referring new paying members. It has no sales pages, email marketing or order bumps, so you’ll need other tools for marketing.

Branding is where Skool is weakest. You can set a group name, an icon and a cover image, and that’s it: no custom themes, no white-labeling and no branded mobile app.

Skool Pricing

Skool has two plans, and both include unlimited members, courses, videos and live calls:

• Hobby: $9 per month for 1 admin, with a 10% transaction fee.
• Pro: $99 per month for unlimited admins, with a 2.9% + 30¢ transaction fee.

Skool processes payments itself, so these fees include card processing. The $9 plan is the cheapest way into a paid community on this list, but the 10% fee catches up fast. At $30 per member, Pro becomes the cheaper plan at about $1,480 a month in sales.

Skool Pros and Cons

Bottom line: Skool is the fastest way to launch a paid community with courses and live calls, and the $9 Hobby plan makes it the cheapest place to start. Choose it if simplicity matters more than branding. If you need separate spaces, your own brand or deeper engagement tools, Circle or Mighty Networks will serve you better.

Also read: my full Skool review, Skool vs Circle and the best Skool alternatives.

5. Bettermode

Best community software for businesses and brands.

Bettermode is the best platform if you’re building product communities, branded creator spaces or enterprise networks. It’s highly flexible, gives you more branding control and comes with enterprise-level security control.

Upon signing up, you’ll get access to 30+ community templates covering various use cases like learning communities, developer hubs, customer support forums,  job boards, and more, so you can launch faster without starting from scratch.

None of the community platforms I tested, not even Circle, Mighty Networks, or Kajabi offered any form of community design templates.

You can customize your community by adding your logo, choosing custom fonts, setting your own color palette, and hosting it on your custom domain. You can even redesign the layout and fully white-label your community end to end.

I especially liked its Block builder which lets you design custom space layouts. 

Instead of using the predefined space layout you can style the space header, then drag in different block types like accordions, leaderboards, tag filters, HTML scripts, space collections, post feeds, and more to give your spaces a different look and functionality.

For example, you can use Blocks to build a structured content library by grouping your posts by tag, embedding a video playlist, or showing only pinned posts in a clean card layout.

Perhaps, the most interesting of all about Bettermode is its Custom App builder. It enables you to build unique functionalities on top of the community platform using APIs and webhooks. It’s kinda like WordPress plugins but for Bettermode communities.

Using the Custom App builder, you can sync member data with your CRM, automate complex moderation workflows, or create custom analytics dashboards that track specific member behaviors. For example, you could build an AI-powered welcome bot that automatically identifies a new member’s interests from their profile and sends them a personalized message with links to relevant resources and spaces.

However this level of control also comes with some tradeoffs. Bettermode has a steep learning curve. Because of its sheer number of customization options, it can take you more time configuring your ideal setup which can be daunting if you’re not familiar with community tools.

It’s also not built for education-first communities because it lacks a native course builder. While you can still use Spaces to organize learning materials, it’s not as intuitive as using well-rounded online course platforms like Kajabi or Thinkific, which offer built-in tools for curriculum structuring, progress tracking, and assessments.

Moreover, Bettermode doesn’t support native payments. And from what I saw in their support forums, they aren’t planning to launch them anytime soon.

If you want to charge for access to your community via membership or sell content, you’ll need to set it up through third-party tools like Stripe using Zapier. Which, as you can guess already, is daunting for non-technical users.

Bettermode features

• Strong community moderation tools: Bettermode includes built-in AI-powered moderation. You can enable Akismet and OOPSpam to automatically detect spam based on IP address, user agent, referrer, and site URL. You can also set keyword-based triggers to flag sensitive content for manual review. As the admin you can place specific members on a watchlist, meaning their posts and comments would require approval before being visible.
• Messaging: Members can message each other directly or participate in private group chats, all within the platform. Messaging is native and doesn’t require external tools.
• Events hosting: You can create, schedule, and manage events directly on Bettermode platform. Members can RSVP, add events to their calendars, and receive reminders.
• Multi-language support: You can localize the interface based on your audience. Members will see translated UI elements like menus, buttons, and prompts according to their language preferences. 
• Detailed Reporting: You can access analytics on posts, comments, membership growth, engagement, moderation actions, and messaging which lets you measure community health and identify trends.
• Blocks: Instead of a fixed layout, Bettermode gives you drag-and-drop control over how each Space looks and functions. You can build a clean video library using post feeds and tag filters, create a multi-section help center with accordions and post blocks, or design a custom homepage using space collections, leaderboards, and HTML embeds. 
• CMS models: Bettermode lets you define exactly what kind of content lives in each Space. You can create structured models for things like knowledge base articles, job listings, documentation, or tutorials. Each model is made up of custom fields like titles, tags, dropdowns, file uploads, embeds, and more. This means you get to decide what content fields appear, how they’re displayed, and who can publish or edit them. Perfect for building searchable, structured hubs inside your community.
• API and webhooks: Bettermode lets you integrate your community with the rest of your tools using API and webhooks. You can use the API to sync members, pull content, or publish updates from other platforms. Meanwhile webhooks let you trigger workflows like sending a Slack alert when someone posts in a feedback Space, or enrolling new members in your email list when they join a private group.

Bettermode Pricing

Bettermode used to be an affordable option, with plans starting at just $59 per month which made it accessible to early-stage startups, creators, and growing communities.

However, this year the company eliminated its free plan and significantly increased its pricing. The plans now start at $149 per month billed annually ($199 month to month) for up to 10,000 members, and $1,500 per month billed annually ($1,750 month to month) for up to 25,000 members.

Its highest-tier plan, Premium, comes with custom pricing, but it still imposes limits: including caps at 100,000 members and 20 collaborators and applies overage fees if those limits are exceeded.

Bettermode Pros and Cons

Explore Bettermode

6. Kajabi Communities

Best all-in-one digital business platform.

Kajabi is the best online community platform if you’re looking for a comprehensive digital business solution that comes with well-integrated sales and marketing features. 

Unlike community-focused platforms like Circle and Mighty Networks, Kajabi provides everything you need to run your business in one place. You can build websites, create sales funnels, run email marketing campaigns, and set up checkout systems, without relying on third-party tools.

For example, you won’t need Kit for email marketing or ClickFunnels for sales funnels because Kajabi has these features built in.

Like Heartbeat, Kajabi Community is refreshingly easy to use. You can structure and organize your community using Channels and Access Groups which makes it easy to manage content and member interactions.

Channels serve as the main organization tool within your community. They allow you to structure your community around different topics or themes, which can take various forms, such as group chats or threaded discussions.

I found creating posts straightforward, though I felt like its post editor could use more polishing because it looked a bit dated. But it lets you create everything from simple community text posts, to long articles. You can also embed multimedia like images, videos, audio files, and even polls to increase engagement.

Apart from creating posts, Kajabi also lets you engage members via challenges, leaderboards and meetups.

Unlike other platforms such as Circle, Mighty Networks, or Heartbeat, Kajabi provides native tools for hosting challenges directly in your community.

You can set one-time or recurring challenges, set their duration, and even specify rewards for winners.

Speaking of leaderboards, Kajabi lets you award members points when they complete a challenge, RSVP to an event, respond to a poll and more.

You can customize the points system, award badges, and even assign titles to members who reach certain milestones.

Kajabi also supports live events, allowing you to host virtual gatherings for up to 200 attendees within specific channels or access groups. Members can RSVP, and you can use the platform’s built-in livestreaming feature.

I actually did try its livestreaming tool and I liked it. It’s simple with decent web conferencing tools and settings. ( please don’t roast my low res laptop webcam)

During live events, you can share your screen, enable chat, and even create breakout rooms, making it easy to host interactive sessions. You can also record your sessions which can make good learning materials.

In my opinion, Kajabi is the best solution if you’re looking to build an engaging online learning space for your courses and coaching programs, without the need to pay for separate tools for marketing and sales.

The Kajabi online community builder is well polished. It has an intuitive UI and strong engagement features. You can create Circles to organize your community and manage access with Access Groups. You can then engage members using community posts, polls, challenges, live events and gamification.

Kajabi communities features

• Community challenges: The platform allows you to engage community members with challenges to encourage them to work toward common goals or learning objectives.
• Built-in events: You can easily host online events like webinars, workshops, and live Q&As directly in Kajabi, without needing extra tools. It also supports 1-on-1 live coaching sessions. Plus, you can record these events and use them later as part of your course content.
• Native sales and marketing features: Once you sign up for Kajabi, you gain access to built-in marketing tools like sales funnels, a website builder, email marketing, and contact management, eliminating the need for external integrations.
• Student assessments and certification: Kajabi lets you create quizzes with automatic grading, making it easy to assess students. After they complete a course, you can quickly issue certificates of completion.

Kajabi pricing

Kajabi comes at a higher price tag compared to other specialized online community platforms due to its comprehensive approach

Here’s a brief breakdown of Kajabi Pricing.

• Basic: $179/mon for up to 2,500 contacts 
• Growth: $249/mon for up to 25,000 contacts
• Pro: $499/mon for up to 100,000 contacts

Kajabi pros and cons

Explore Kajabi.

Also read: Kajabi alternatives

7. Swarm

Best for building video-rich online communities and coaching programs.

Swarm works a little differently than many other online community platforms I’ve tested on this list.

It is a video-centric platform which means that video conversations can take place either live or asynchronously. This can come in handy if you rely on video to connect with your audience and conversations are more relatable and authentic. You can also use text and voice notes but Swarm prides itself on being video-first.

For example if you’re a YouTuber sharing behind the scenes content or online coach offering interactive workshops. 

In Swarm, your community will be structured and organized using Hubs. They’re similar to Circle’s spaces or Channels in slack. A Hub can either be video, or discussion, or chat focused.

In the test community I set up for the LinoDash Coaching Program, I split things into hubs for a welcome area, posts, group chat, challenges, events, a participant directory, workshops and resources. Posting is quick: every hub has Text, Record and Voice buttons, so a video reply is one click away.

Within your community hubs, you can choose to share content by recording a video or audio on the go right within the Swarm platform or you can upload video files from your local storage.

You can also embed your videos from external hosting platforms like YouTube, Wistia and Vimeo. 

Swarm also lets you create text based community posts with rich content such as images, GIFs, audio, polls and file attachments. 

Speaking of events, Swarm lets you natively stream your live sessions or you can choose to use a third party software like Zoom or WebinarJam. However, its native live events features come with some serious limitations of up to 90 minutes for its high end plan.

Swarm Community Features

• Video, voice and text in one thread: record a video reply or a voice note, share your screen, or post text, images and GIFs.
• Native live events: a meeting mode for interactive sessions and a webinar mode for broadcasts, with co-hosts, paid events and recordings that post themselves. Streams are capped at 30, 60 or 90 minutes depending on your plan.
• Courses: drag-and-drop modules with enforced lesson order, quizzes and certificates.
• Gamification: points, levels, leaderboards, badges and streaks, with bonus points for video posts.
• Payments: memberships, courses, downloads, event tickets and bookings, sold from a branded storefront.
• Messaging and help: DMs and group chats, an AI assistant and moderation tools.
• Branded app: on the Scale plan, installed straight from the browser on iOS, Android and desktop, with no App Store.

Swarm Pricing

Swarm has recently introduced the Launch plan which gives members the opportunity to build their community at minimal cost. Members can then upgrade as they grow. The jump between Launch and Growth plans might be significant in terms of cost but allows up to 5x the number of members as well as 1 hour live streams.

Here’s a breakdown of Swarm’s pricing:

• Launch: $29/month ($19 billed yearly) for 1 community space and up to 1000 members, unlimited courses and events, live streams up to 30 minutes.
• Growth: $89/month ($79 billed yearly) for 5 spaces and up to 5000 members, unlimited courses and events, live streams up to 60 minutes.
• Scale: $199/month ($149 billed yearly) for unlimited spaces, unlimited members, unlimited courses and events, white labelling with branded app, API access, SSO and live streams up to 90 minutes. 

Swarm also takes a cut of everything you sell, and the cut is steepest on the cheapest plan.

• 5% on the Launch plan
• 0% on the Growth plan
• 0% on the Scale plan

That 5% is one of the higher fees here, behind only Skool Hobby’s 10%. On $2,000 a month in sales it costs you $100, more than three times the $29 subscription.

Swarm Pros and Cons

Swarm is the best community platform if you’re looking to build an online space where video is the primary form of engagement. It’s useful especially for coaches and educators looking to build tightly focused communities where they can offer value to their clients either in small groups or 1-on-1 sessions. 

Explore Swarm free for 14 days.

8. GroupApp

Best for building online learning communities.

GroupApp is one of the few online community platforms with robust online learning tools. While software like Circle, Mighty Networks, and Skool include course-building capabilities, they have shallow learning management tools.

GroupApp offers a drag-and-drop curriculum builder that lets you structure courses into clear modules and lessons.

You can choose to natively host your course materials or embed video lessons from third-party platforms like Wistia, YouTube and Vimeo. 

To ensure student progress, you can enforce module completion, requiring students to watch previous materials before unlocking the next. 

You can also drip-feed modules and customize notification emails to inform students when new lessons become available.

Unlike most mainstream community platforms, GroupApp allows you to assess students through quizzes and assignments. You can also use the form-building feature to survey learners and collect feedback, providing insights into their learning experience.

The platform also provides detailed student progress reports, offering data on lesson views, completion rates, and participation levels. You can see who is enrolled, when they joined, and how far they have progressed in real-time.

Clicking on a student’s name reveals a comprehensive report showing their overall completion percentage, specific finished modules, submitted assignments, and an activity timeline of logins which gives you a full picture of their learning journey.

Unlike Circle or Skool, GroupApp allows you to reward learners by automatically issuing branded certificates upon course completion. This is ideal for upskilling or certification programs where you want to accredit learners.

When it comes to community building tools GroupApp’s features are standard but include powerful access control tools. You can organize discussions into “Channels” to group conversations by theme and topics.

You can set access levels for these channels as:

• Open: Accessible to anyone visiting the community.
• Private: Admin invite only.
• Paid members: Restricted to paying members.
• By plans: Accessible only to members on specific subscription plans.

Within these channels, members can participate in threaded discussions by sharing posts, images, audio, or video.

You also host live events allowing members to RSVP. However, unlike Circle or Mighty Networks, GroupApp does not support native livestreaming. You must use third-party software like Zoom, which means members are directed outside your community to participate.

Regarding branding, GroupApp offers limited customization. You can add a logo, cover image, favicon, and one theme color. 

But it does not support customization at the individual channel level. While you can use a custom domain and remove GroupApp branding on its higher plans, a branded mobile app comes with its top plan, Branded App ($485 a month, or $427 billed yearly).

GroupApp Pricing

GroupApp offers three paid tiers limiting you based on the number of channels and admins you can have. All plans allow for unlimited courses and have no platform transaction fees.

• Free: $0 for up to 100 members, 3 channels, and 1 admin.
• Build: $65 per month ($57 billed yearly) for up to 1,000 members, 20 channels, and 2 admins.
• Scale: $145 per month ($127 billed yearly) for up to 5,000 members, 50 channels, and 5 admins.
• Branded App: $485 per month ($427 billed yearly) for up to 20,000 members, unlimited channels, and unlimited admins.

GroupApp Pros and Cons

Bottom line: GroupApp is the ideal community software for creators, coaches, and educators who want a platform that supports serious learning with a community. It has the course-building capabilities of specialist platforms like Thinkific while adding a powerful community layer. It is a strong choice for running upskilling programs, cohort-based courses, masterminds, group coaching, and accelerator programs where communities are an essential part of learning.

Explore GroupApp for 14 days for free.

Which community platform should you choose?

Start with what you are building. Here is my first pick for each kind of community, the runner-up, and the one thing to check before you commit:

If you are…	Choose	Runner-up	Watch out for
Building a branded community that will scale	Circle	Mighty Networks	Transaction fees of 0.5% to 2%, and paid add-ons
Running a highly engaged social community	Mighty Networks	Circle	Livestream hours and viewers are capped on lower plans
A coach starting out on a budget	Heartbeat	Swarm	A 5% fee and a 350-member cap on the Build plan
Launching your first paid community fast	Skool	Heartbeat	A 10% fee on Hobby and almost no branding
Selling courses, coaching and email from one place	Kajabi	Circle	It starts at $179 a month ($143 billed annually)
Coaching mainly over video	Swarm	Heartbeat	Live streams are capped at 30 to 90 minutes by plan
Running structured courses with quizzes and certificates	GroupApp	Heartbeat	No native livestreaming
A brand or SaaS team	Bettermode	Circle	No built-in payments, from $149 a month billed annually
Testing an idea for free	GroupApp	Discord or a Facebook Group	The free plan stops at 100 members and 3 channels

The best free community platforms

GroupApp is the best free community platform: its free plan gives you up to 100 members, 3 channels and 1 admin, with courses and no transaction fees. Discord, Facebook Groups, Discourse and BuddyBoss’s free plugin cost nothing too, but each trades away ownership, payments or your own time.

Platform	What is free	What it costs you
GroupApp	Up to 100 members, 3 channels and 1 admin, with courses	Paid plans start at $65 a month when you outgrow it
Discord	Unlimited members and channels	You don’t own the space, it can’t be branded, and posts get buried in chat
Facebook Groups	Unlimited members	Facebook controls who sees your posts, and you can’t brand the group
Discourse	Open-source community forum software you host yourself, or its free hosted plan	Discussion only, with no courses; hosted Pro is $100 a month
BuddyBoss	The core Platform plugin for WordPress	Hosting, a theme and upkeep; paid plans from $199 for the first year

If you plan to charge from day one, compare these with Skool Hobby at $9 a month, the cheapest paid plan in this guide.

The best community apps for iPhone and Android

Every platform in this guide except Bettermode gives members an iOS and Android app. The difference is whose name is on it: Circle, Mighty Networks, Heartbeat, Kajabi, Swarm and GroupApp can publish a white-label app under your own brand, on their higher plans.

Platform	Member app	Your own branded app
Circle	iOS and Android	Circle Plus (custom pricing)
Mighty Networks	iOS and Android	Mighty Pro (custom pricing)
Swarm	Yes, installed from the browser	Scale plan, $199 a month ($149 billed yearly), installed from the browser rather than the App Store
GroupApp	iOS and Android	Branded App plan, $485 a month ($427 billed yearly)
Heartbeat	iOS and Android	Scale plan, $849 a month ($766 billed yearly)
Kajabi	iOS and Android	Pro plan, $499 a month ($399 billed annually)
Skool	Yes	No
Bettermode	No native app	No

Wrapping Up: What Community Platform or App is Best for You?

I’ve been testing online community software for well over three years now. 

During that time, I’ve come across plenty of platforms promising powerful community-building tools. Only to discover, once you get to use them, that much of it is all marketing hype. 

However, one thing has remaind clear: there is no single platform that’s best for everyone.

That’s exactly what this buyer’s guide is for. Instead of pushing a one-size-fits-all solution, I did my best to show you where each platform excels, how its pricing fairs, and when to choose one over another.

To bring it all together, here’s a summary of the best community platforms I’ve tested, along with the my recommendations on when each one is the right choice:

1. Circle.so: The strongest option for community management, branding, and long-term scalability. Choose Circle if you’re building professional networks, branded creator communities, mastermind groups, or customer support forums.
2. Mighty Networks: A highly flexible platform for building social-first communities with strong member engagement. Best suited for creator communities, paid memberships, niche peer groups, interest-based communities, and event-driven networks.
3. Heartbeat: An easy-to-use learning-plus-community platform. Ideal for coaching groups, cohort-based courses, and mastermind programs.
4. Bettermode: Highly flexible and customizable, with powerful integrations. Best for customer communities, internal teams, developer forums, and knowledge bases.
5. Skool: The simplest way to launch a paid community, with courses, live calls and a leaderboard in one feed. Best for coaches and first-time community builders who value simplicity over branding.
6. Kajabi: Eliminates the cost and complexity of stacking multiple third-party tools. Go with Kajabi if you want an all-in-one membership platform to sell, market, and deliver courses, content, and community from a single place.
7. Swarm: A video-first community platform designed for deeper, more personal interactions. Best for intimate group coaching programs and small mastermind communities centered around live conversations.
8. GroupApp: Strong LMS-style learning tools combined with a community layer. Choose it for high-end education programs, corporate training, and structured coaching environments.

Also read:

• Best online course platforms of 2026
• Best membership site and management platforms
• Best community platforms for businesses and enterprises.

Best Online Community Platforms: FAQs